Rachel Maddow Mocks Bill O'Reilly Over His War Reporting Controversy

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow isn't quite finished going after Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and the networks failure to provide any concrete explanation for the allegations against him.

Referring to O'Reilly as "the undisputed king of cable news," Maddow summarized the controversy currently surrounding the newsman, which began two weeks ago when a scathing report published in Mother Jones revealed that the host may have fabricated or embellished his war reporting experiences during the Falklands War in 1982.

"He was never in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, it just never happened," she said. "But Fox News has still not corrected that or commented on those claims at all, except to express the Fox News Channel's unqualified support for Mr. O'Reilly as their star anchor."

Last week, new allegations emerged arguing that O'Reilly also lied about having witnessed the 1977 suicide of George de Mohrenschildt, a friend of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, while working as a reporter in Dallas.

Maddow played clips of O'Reilly's unequivocal statements on "Fox & Friends" -- that he was present when the gun shot went off, the same claim the host had made several times before as well as in his book, Killing Kennedy.

Maddow then replayed an audio recording released by CNN last week, in which O'Reilly is told about the suicide by phone and says that he would be going to Florida the next day.

The recording, Maddow said, suggests "no plausible, innocent explanation" for his claims. Noticing a commonality among the allegations, Maddow explained that, in each case, O'Reilly purports to have witnessed events firsthand despite the fact that he may have only seen photos.

But according to Maddow, when she asked Fox News to comment on the Florida suicide story, all the network gave to her was information on O'Reilly's high ratings.

“Your ratings are great! I’ve seen your ratings shoot my ratings right in the head,” Maddow said, laughing. “Well, I’ve seen pictures of that, I should say."

Burn.

UPDATE (11:08 AM): In a statement to Mediaite, Fox News disputes the Rachel Maddow Show's characterization of their exchange. The network says it responded to Maddow's request for comment with a statement as well as other contacts and information from previous stories; it included information about O'Reilly's ratings among this material.